Pursuing What Honors God[L]eaders, spokespersons, and professionals who are well experienced and knowledgeable in God's truth and wisdom must work together as the body of Christ, through God's empowering grace, to responsibly and explicitly address the public issues, proposals, and processes of society and usher in the kingdom ways of God by modeling and manifesting the reality of the benevolent love of Christ. This is the way we lead others as co-shepherds with Christ. We are to follow Christ under the imperative of God's character, to love our neighbors as ourselves. Our responsibility is to pursue with all diligence what honors God and what is good for the public in the economic, political, professional, and social issues that impact life and living. As such we become a city on a hill, salt and light, and messengers of grace and peace. How this is done is as unique and creative as the number of those choosing to live as followers of Christ. We should assume a chemist, for example, who is a disciple of Jesus and is in constant conversation with Christ should be, all things being equal, a better chemist then she would otherwise be if she were not a disciple of Jesus. Such an idea is thought extremely radical today, even perhaps bigoted or prejudicial. This need not be the case, but may be in some instances, only if such persons abuse or misuse their potential to ill effect, which of course disciples of Jesus would not want to do. Yet it is not the moral dimensions of Christianity alone that we are referring to here. There is much more to truly "Christian" chemists than the manner in which they may go about their job. There is also a very practical ability for the Christ follower to tap into the knowledge of reality, which includes chemistry, that we believe Jesus actually can and does give access to. This is true not just in chemistry, of course, but in every profession, even every task. We should expect miracles, and there are miracle discoveries in chemistry and other disciplines, often because God has divulged or led people to such discoveries, much of which he doesn't get credit for. But if chemists or any other leaders who are disciples of Jesus count on God to assist them in their work, God would and does give great assistance, all of which is understood as an act of grace From The Divine Conspiracy Continued: Fulfilling God's Kingdom on Earth. Copyright © 2014 by Dallas Willard amd Gary Black Jr. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. |
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